01 December 2020
Joe Bombagi, director solutions engineering, UK & Ireland at Riverbed Technology
The rise in flexible working, triggered by Covid-19, put a huge strain on networks. In some instances, as individuals overloaded the networks with bandwidth hungry applications such as video-conferencing tools and TV streaming apps, their resiliency was thrown into question too. This was caused by a lack of planning for unforeseeable events. After all, no-one could have predicted that the existing strategies that businesses had in place – to optimise workplace infrastructure and ensure staff could work productively without disruption – would become challenged overnight. 
Fast forward a few months, as businesses begin to settle into a new and unpredictable normal, they are being forced into adapting their plans to maintain performance, drive productivity and support their workforce. In fact, to the majority of businesses, it has become clear that enabling employees to work from anywhere will be the key to success as they move forward. But in adapting working practices, companies need to ensure that they are taking the right steps to build network resilience at the same time. If they don’t, businesses risk opening the door to slow running and ineffective systems, hindering employee productivity and ultimately the company's ability to successfully maintain business operations.
Work from anywhere setups are here to stay
It is unquestionable that the pandemic has overhauled business attitudes to remote working. Organisations are now recognising that there is no longer a need for the majority of staff to work in the office, if it is not where they are most productive. In fact, recent research from Riverbed found that businesses are expecting a 50 percent increase in employees working remotely post Covid-19. However, in order for this to be feasible, businesses need to be confident that their operations will continue smoothly, regardless of where their employees are working from. This requires a step up in network performance.
At the onset of the pandemic, expectations of network performance were relatively low, as employees appreciated that networks were being used in a way that they had never been intended to. Six months into the mass remote working movement, and in the face of a challenging economic climate, businesses need networks that can deliver productivity that is equal, if not better, than the traditional office set up. Meeting this challenge will require networks to evolve.
Networks are adapting to meet increased demand
Prior to Covid-19 approximately five percent of the UK’s workforce operated remotely, according to the ONS. By April 2020, this number had shot up to 46.6 percent. This rapid rise resulted in a double-digit increase in internet traffic; with employees turning to web-based applications – such as Office 365, Google Suite and Zoom – to facilitate remote collaboration. Consequently, networks, limited by bandwidth and latency, struggled to maintain good speeds and levels of responsiveness. In fact, research from Onecom found that 21 percent of UK workers have reported issues with their broadband connection during the pandemic. These network performance problems, in turn, negatively impacted employee productivity, as revealed in Riverbed’s recent research.
To tackle the latency challenge, and unlock efficiency, businesses need to embrace emerging technology and use it as a cornerstone for evolving their networks to become more resilient. For example, introducing 5G. Thanks to its high bandwidth connections, 5G has the potential to drive productivity by providing staff with more reliable connections, giving them smoother and quicker access to applications and downloads, and enabling them to utilise internet of things devices. However, adding 5G, and embracing the technologies it facilitates, could inadvertently damage employee productivity through increasing the complexity of the network if not combined with effective network management.
Adopting a multi-layered approach to network management
To guarantee employees have reliable network and application access, and can utilise capabilities such as 5G, from anywhere, businesses must invest in technology that provides end-to-end visibility. This means adopting network performance management (NPM) solutions that collect and analyse the data flowing through every application on every device. With this holistic overview, IT teams can easily identify anomalies such as slow running applications or employees who are unable to participate in video conferencing due to limited bandwidth. Armed with this information, they will be able to quickly understand the problem and take steps to resolve it. For example, implementing application acceleration tools to manage bandwidth and latency driven network problems.
By using complementary network performance management technologies and application acceleration tools, IT teams will be able to optimise the performance of their increasingly complex networks so that employees, and the business as a whole, can operate effectively.
Performance tools are vital to managing future networks and achieving business success
There is no denying that networks must evolve and become more resilient to facilitate employee productivity in the work-from-anywhere world. These changes, including a rise in 5G adoption, will hold the key to maintaining business efficiency, but they will also increase network complexity. To ensure this complexity does not eradicate the benefits evolving the network will provide, organisations must invest in NPM and acceleration tools to troubleshoot and resolve issues. In doing so, businesses will future-proof the network and harness the power of connectivity to deliver the employee efficiency needed to thrive in a challenging business environment.
